by Jon Hilton
It was a few short weeks ago that MY COHORT and I embarked on the Jefferson Writing Project. We didn’t know where the winds would blow our thoughts but we knew that each day they would be published on our blogs.
My friend’s name is Hope and we talked at the beginning of February and she wanted to do more writing but had some writing blocks and motivational issues. I suggested a mutual writing project. She agreed and we made up some simple rules. I am not a big rules guy because who needs limits on our creativity.
I would make up writing prompts and we each would do a post that day involving the prompt. It was supposed to last for thirty days, but went a bit longer.
I went back and looked over our Facebook messages and it started on the 9th of February and ended today. Hope doesn’t like to write on Sunday! (I can blame her, but I like Sunday off too. 🙂
Coming up with the prompts was not as easy as I thought in the beginning. I know Hope so I wanted to get some good easy to write about things. Then as I got going I would just make them up in three seconds.
Or if I was cheating, I would start a post on something and use that for the prompt, or make the prompt something I wanted to write about anyway. In fact what I found, no matter what the prompt was I just wrote whatever I wanted to anyway.
I found that I learned a lot just from reading Hope’s posts, when she was fired up she would get them done way before me. I found I could read and enjoy her thoughts and not let them affect what I was writing.
After about twenty writing assignments or so, we switched it up and Hope was responsible for the prompt. That was more fun because then I could bug her to tell me what it is, rather than the other way around. I still just wrote whatever I wanted to and included the prompt in some way. Other times the prompt was the story.
It was fun to have someone else “checking up” on your work and at first the only other person who knew why you were writing about the things you were.
It is just enough motivation to get you to give a little extra effort to make sure you got your post out that day. But most importantly it was fun. Hope is a bit different, (in a good way), I know her personally and used to coach her in basketball. That was awhile ago but I enjoy seeing the young lady she has grown to become.
So I encourage anyone who is hitting a snag in their creativity or motivation to partner up or even group up and start a writing project. It was a fun way to keep things interesting and to work on being creative.
It is called the Jefferson Writing Project because, Hope and I both lived in the town of Jefferson, Maine when we were growing up, and we both graduated from Jefferson Village School, and know that Jefferson is small, has a beach, and a cattle pound. I do not know what the cattle pound is for, but it exists. She likes to take pictures there. Thanks Hope for all the fun. I will always be reading and commenting on your blog because that is how I roll.
